For some reason most critics have a hard time fixing their minds directly under their noses, and before they see the object that is there they use a telescope upon the horizon to see where it came from.

There is probably nothing wrong with art for art's sake if we take the phrase seriously, and not take it to mean the kind of poetry written in England forty years ago.

But in our age the appeal to authority is weak, and I am of my age.

So the poet, who wants to be something that he cannot be, and is a failure in plain life, makes up fictitious versions of his predicament that are interesting even to other persons because nobody is a perfect automobile salesman.

The Spring I seek is in a new face only.

Religion is the sole technique for the validating of values.

Genetic theories, I gather, have been cherished academically with detachment.

At twelve I was determined to shoot only For honor; at twenty not to shoot at all; I know at thirty-three that one must shoot As often as one gets the rare chance - In killing there is more than commentary.

Narcissism and the Confederate dead cannot be connected logically, or even historically; even were the connection an historical fact, they would not stand connected as art, for no one experiences raw history.

Other psychological theories say a good deal about compensation.

The mission for the day is to encourage students to think beyond traditional career opportunities, prepare for future careers and entrance into the workplace.

I believe the term modulation denotes in music the uninterrupted shift from one key to another: I do not know the term for change of rhythm without change of measure.

Men expect too much, do too little.

What is the poem, after it is written? That is the question. Not where it came from or why.

How does one happen to write a poem: where does it come from? That is the question asked by the psychologists or the geneticists of poetry.

Dramatic experience is not logical; it may be subdued to the kind of coherence that we indicate when we speak, in criticism, of form.

We know the particular poem, not what it says that we can restate.

For some reason most critics have a hard time fixing their minds directly under their noses, and before they see the object that is there they use a telescope upon the horizon to see where it came from.

In a manner of speaking, the poem is its own knower, neither poet nor reader knowing anything that the poem says apart from the words of the poem.

Poets, in their way, are practical men; they are interested in results.

Experience means conflict, our natures being what they are, and conflict means drama.

A poem may be an instance of morality, of social conditions, of psychological history; it may instance all its qualities, but never one of them alone, nor any two or three; never less than all.

The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.

Serious poetry deals with the fundamental conflicts that cannot be logically resolved: we can state the conflicts rationally, but reason does not relieve us of them.

According to its doctors, my one intransigent desire is to have been a Confederate general, and because I could not or would not become anything else, I set up for poet and beg an to invent fictions about the personal ambitions that my society has no use for.

I am not ridiculing verbal mechanisms, dreams, or repressions as origins of poetry; all three of them and more besides may have a great deal to do with it.

The innocent mansion of a panther's heart!

The dusk runs down the lane driven like hail Far off a precise whistle is escheat To the dark and then the towering weak and pale.

There is a calm for you where men and women Unroll the chill precision of moving feet.

The dreary flies lazy and casual Stick to the ceiling buzz along the wall. O heart the spider shuffles from the mould Weaving between the pinks and grapes his pall.

Once, when a British Prime Minister sneezed, men half a world away would blow their noses. Now when a British Prime Minister sneezes nobody else will even say 'Bless You'.

When you are down and out something always turns up - and it is usually the noses of your friends.

It is fortunate that diplomats have long noses since they usually cannot see beyond them.

I do not know how to kiss, or I would kiss you. Where do the noses go?

All the American women had purple noses and gray lips and their faces were chalk white from terrible powder. I recognized that the United States could be my life's work.

Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business.

I'm disappointed in acting as a craft. I want everything to go back to Orson Welles and fake noses and changing your voice. It's become so much about personality.

Most of us don't have to worry about being shot of we poke our noses outside. So we are comfortable, but the people I'm writing about are definitely not comfortable, and being shot while they're still inside is a good possibility.

Start with God - the first step in learning is bowing down to God; only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning.

For some reason most critics have a hard time fixing their minds directly under their noses, and before they see the object that is there they use a telescope upon the horizon to see where it came from.

You heard on all sides that the brightest Jewish children were turned down if the examining officers did not like the turn of their noses.

To let the people know there was life beyond Shirley Dean, we decided to focus on voter registration; each day I set up my card table somewhere in the district, signed people up, and passed out noses.

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.

I have busted more hippies' noses than all the narcs in the free world.

There are a lot of people out there who are just waiting that we fail. They brought up the theory that we're one-hit wonders and they want us to fall flat on our noses, just to prove them right.

Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.

I confront the European elite's self-image as tolerant 'while under their noses women are living like slaves.

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.

Maybe there is no actual place called hell. Maybe hell is just having to listen to our grandparents breathe through their noses when they're eating sandwiches.